Thankgiving with Chuck
by CherylB1964
Summary: With Gabriel in charge of heaven and things on Earth, Chuck decides to bring all of his children, human and angelic together to spend Thanksgiving Day. Chuck wants his angelic children to bond as a family and thinks his human children can help. Another in the Gabriel in Charge universe


Chuck Shurley looked at the huge table. Well it would have to be huge with everyone that would be attending. In his hands he had a thick stack of name cards. Now to figure out the seating arrangements.

Of course his name card went at the head of the table. He was God after all. Gabriel's name card appeared at the opposite end of the table. It was best to place Lucifer and Michael nearest to him. Next came Dean beside Michael and Sam next to Lucifer. Castiel next to Dean and Balthazar on the other side of Sam.

Meg was the perfect one to sit at Castiel's other side since there seemed to be a bit of thing developing between the newly formed archangel and the ascended demon. Joshua beside Balthazar. Murphy would sit next to Meg, and Connor next to Joshua. Kevin next to Connor and Darius next to Murphy which brought him to the other end of the table where Gabriel's card sat.

Then there were the other tables where the pagans would sit presided over by Thor. God would let Thor sort out those seating arrangements. God looked over the place settings. The plates were of gold and the silverware was actual silver. The glassware was all fashioned from fine gems. Diamonds sapphires and rubies would hold water and wine. Everything was perfect. Time to work out the menu for tomorrow.

* * *

Sam collapsed backwards onto the bed, these hauntings were taking their toll. Thank God tomorrow was Thanksgiving. No hunting. Although they had never really had a home or a normal childhood, Dean had always tried to make Thanksgiving and Christmas special in some way or at least not hunt. The brother's usually found some local restaurant that had a Thanksgiving buffet and wolfed down turkey and the trimmings and then found a nice quiet spot to park the Impala and have a few beers just spending quiet time alone. Sam was looking forward to it.

"So Golden Corral or Barnhill's tomorrow Sammy?" Dean asked asked as he dug through his duffel bag to find a pair of sweats to change into after his shower.

"I guess it doesn't matter. I mean as long as they have turkey right?" Sam yawned.

"Well which one do you think has the best pie?" Dean prodded. Then almost jumped out of his skin as Cas popped in next to him. "Jesus Cas! Will you give a guy some warning!"

"Dean, Sam. I was asked to deliver a message to you." Castiel said holding out a golden envelope to Dean. "You will attend Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow with us."

"What?" Dean asked "Who is us?"

"Our father has returned and he wants us all at Thanksgiving dinner. He told me to tell you Dean that he will be serving the best pie in the cosmos for dessert." Castiel disappeared.

"Dude! We just got invited to Thanksgiving Dinner with God!" Dean said. "And he's making pie!"

Sam shook his head with a smile as Dean danced his way into the bathroom singing Cherry Pie.

* * *

Darius and Kevin had their heads together as usual working on the new 'bible' when Connor and Murphy dragged ass into the flat they shared in South Boston. The brothers had been out on a mission taking care of another upstart looking to fill the void left by the destruction of the Yakavetta family. This time is was one of the Chinese triads but hey, if there was one thing the MacManus brothers were not it was biased. As far as they were concerned all evil men were equal in their eyes as Tommy Chang had discovered when two bullets ripped through his brain.

"Another bites the dust." Darius said. "Another verse of smiting saints."

"You know you don't have to list every one of them by name." Connor said dropping his coat on the couch and flopping down next to it.

"Yeah, it will just read like a lot of filler, like all those begats." Murphy said handing Connor a one of the two cigarettes he had just lit.

Murphy yanked it out of his mouth when he realized the tobacco stick had suddenly been turned into a candy cigarette. Picking up the pack he realized that they were all candy cigarettes.

"You know they call those things coffin nails for a reason."

"Gabriel!" The archangel was standing there munching on a Milky Way bar. "Dad's doing Thanksgiving Dinner tomorrow. He wants you all there." Gabriel said holding up a golden envelope. "Don't be late or Dean will eat all the pie!"

* * *

Chuck looked around the big dining hall and smiled. All of his children in one place about to celebrate thanksgiving together. Perfect he thought. He really wanted to understand this 'holiday concept'.

Unfortunately even God had no idea just how stressful Thanksgiving dinner could be. The first inkling came when God realized that that turkey legs were the most popular part of the bird. In order to accommodate the demand for drumsticks and Wings (which he had found was the second most popular part of the bird) all of the Turkeys being served now had 8 wings and drumsticks.

"Dad, this isn't right." Gabriel noted. "The yardbird has more wings than I do!" This started a round of grumbling from the archangels who all seemed to be offended because they were out-winged by the birds.

"Yeah and Sammy here is too shy to say anything but there's no Breast left." Lucifer added.

"Aww Sam no Turkey boob for you!" Dean said with a laugh grabbing a turkey leg. "But Turkeys do have a big plump butts!" Dean plopped the turkey butt onto Sam's plate. "Eat up Sammy!"

Balthazar looked at the turkey butt for a second and then snatched off the plate before sneaking his hand under the table where Fenrir was laying by Gabriel's feet. Feeling the large wolf clamp his jaws over the thing Balthazar said, "I'm afraid Fen had dibs on those."

Gabriel shook his head and finally snapped a portion of perfectly cooked turkey breast onto Sam's plate. "There you go Sammy."

Then there was an argument over green bean casserole vs peas. Just when Chuck had thought he had fixed that, Gabriel looked up and said "But I want collard greens!"

The idea of Gabriel eating any type of vegetable made Lucifer choke on a mouthful of water, after spewing half of it on Michael. Michael was now angrily wiping his face, Sam was pounding Lucifer on the back and Gabriel was sitting there trying and failing to look innocent.

Chuck sighed and all the plates were suddenly empty. "Okay everybody just think about what you want to eat since no one can agree!"

Lucifer had conjured up plate of hot wings and Sam had a huge salad topped with turkey. Balthazar had fish and chips while Joshua had also opted for a salad. Connor and Murphy now had Beef and Guinness pie just like Ma used to make. Kevin had a huge bowl of Cap'n Crunch. Darius had a huge steamed lobster. Meg had a bowl of Manhattan Clam chowder. Dean and Cas had snapped up Bacon Cheeseburgers. And Michael had gone the traditional turkey and trimmings route. Chuck nodded and then looked to the other end of the table. Gabriel had a single honey glazed baby carrot surrounded by five different varieties of Cranberry sauce. Chuck picked up the club sandwich that had appeared in front of him.

"All I wanted was a nice family dinner for once. No Apocalypse, no fighting. I don't know why you humans go through this." Chuck said. "I figured this would help me understand It seems like an awful lot of work for the amount of complaints I got."

"It's so they have an excuse to eat turkey, drink beer and fall asleep on the couch during football games in a family setting." Gabriel said jokingly.

"Ignore the feathered dick at the other end of the table. We do it because sometimes people just get busy and they forget to be thankful. Even if it's for a bitch of a baby brother that has Satan on his Facebook friends list." Dean said.

"Shut up Jerk. At least I don't have Busty Asian Beauties at the top of my likes list!" Sam shot back.

"Hey don't knock Busty Asian Beauties! They've got some nice racks." Gabriel said.

"From the angel that stars in his own porn videos." Sam said.

"What?! Gabe you didn't!" Lucifer said proudly. "You did learn all my tricks! I'm proud of you kid!"

"How else was I supposed to make sure Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb watched it." Gabriel said defensively. "It's the only damned movies they can agree on!"

"Wait I thought you said that it was not acceptable for men to watch porn together?" Castiel asked confused then looked at Gabriel. "Did your porn video also involve the pizza man slapping the babysitter on her rear?"

Chuck looked at Castiel in disbelief before shaking his head.

Michael exasperated, yelled "No discussing porn at the dinner table!"

"Okay Mikey." Lucifer said before snapping up a plate of sausages. "Have a kielbasa."

"They're Hungarian." Gabriel added helpfully from the end of the table.

Chuck no longer tried to contain his laughter. "Gabriel, the sex fiend. Castiel, lost without a clue. Michael the universe's biggest prude and Lucifer stop encouraging Gabriel! If I had known you were going to completely corrupt him, I would have put Raphael in charge of his education."

"Then I would have turned out like Michael." Gabriel said with a horrified look before giving his trademark smirk.

"There's nothing wrong with having morals above the level of an alley cat." Michael said. "You should try practicing a little self restraint from time to time Baby Arch."

"What would be the fun in that?" Gabriel asked. "And don't call me Baby Arch. I haven't been a baby for 250 million years!"

"Well you have to admit, compared to me and Mikey you're still a snot nosed kid." Lucifer said.

"Exactly how old are you?" Sam asked.

"Well if you were to compare it to human years. Michael and I would be members in good standing with AARP." Lucifer said. "Michael is even closing in on Social Security."

"They're senior citizens." Gabriel smirked. "The old folks!"

"What about you Cas?" Dean asked.

"Castiel is still a pimply faced teenager." Lucifer said "Like 18. His flock was only created at the beginning of the Jurassic Era."

"And poor Darius would still be a newborn but Dad created the current flock as developmentally comparable to 16 year olds." Balthazar added. "That means Gabby and I luckily ducked The Terrible two millions."

"Are you saying angels grow up, like kids?" Murphy asked.

"They start off as fledglings. Cute little things really, about the size of a London double-decker bus when they hatch." Chuck said. "Or at least they're cute until they start meddling with my works in progress. I still haven't gotten over Lucifer putting a duck's bill on my Platypus."

"Hey we always thought that was proof of you having a sense of humor." Sam said.

"I do have a sense of humor, I left it that way." Chuck said with a smile "And then Gabriel had to go show one to the hyenas and they're still laughing to this very day.

The only time I really got angry with one of them was when Michael decided to see what would happen if he dropped a meteor on the Yucatan Peninsula. Millions of years of work down the drain."

"I remember that." Lucifer laughed. "Mikey got grounded for 5 million years."

"Dude! You got grounded for extincting the dinosaurs?" Dean laughed.

"It's not funny." Balthazar said. "All the Seraphs got banned from Earth. If an Archangel couldn't be trusted not to break things..."

"But we were allowed back eventually." Castiel said. "As long as we didn't touch anything. And then Balthazar got us banned again. He knocked over the Tower of Babel."

"What?" Balthazar glared at Cas. "I didn't do it on purpose. I tripped! It's not like I'm the one who wondered what would happen if I chipped out a piece of that boulder inside Mount Vesuvius and wiped out the entire population of Pompeii!"

"And Herculaneum!" Gabriel was looking at the two young archangels and laughing.

I fail to understand why you find it so amusing Gabriel." Cas said. "I remember the City of Atlantis suddenly sinking below the ocean while you and Lucifer were playing a game that you called Jenga."

"Good lord!" Connor said "You were a destructive pack of wee terrors."

"Connor MacManus don't you dare talk about anyone being destructive." Murphy said. Who was it got us got us a trip to the woodshed on Saint Paddy's day when we were 12 for burning down the Riordan's tool shed with those cigarettes you stole from Ma?"

"Hey you weren't complaining, and I wasn't the one that dropped my cigarette in a pile of hay!" Connor shot back.

Kevin looked around the table at all the brothers mock arguing at each other about old times. "This is why. It's so we can be together and remember the things we've done. Spend time with each other.

Time really doesn't mean much when you can sit and talk about dinosaurs going extinct. So what if you guys don't talk to each other for a few million years? It's just a drop in the bucket. But for us, well even a year can be too long."

Murphy looked at Kevin for a minute. "You're right, we know we're mortal and we have a limited amount of time."

"We know every day we're one step closer to the grave." Connor said.

"Or one step closer to losing the people that really matter to us." Sam said. "When you get right down to it, we're pretty fragile in the grand scheme of things."

"We don't have a sense of urgency." Michael nodded. "Luce and I had a fight that lasted for eons because we always felt like we had all the time in the cosmos for the other to apologize first. It wasn't like we could die being archangels and all."

"Until a couple of us actually died." Luce said glancing toward the end of the table.

"Okay sore spot! I'd rather not be reminded that I was roadkill." Gabriel said. "Or that Raph still is. I mean he was a pain in the ass, but still I kind of miss him now that we're all getting along again."

"Yeah, he was the perfect butt of a joke." Lucifer said. "Remember the time we told him the only way he could understand pregnancy was to be pregnant?"

"And he agreed to go through a pregnancy in the vessel of our choice." Gabriel laughed.

"Even I had to laugh when he found out that elephant pregnancies lasted for almost two years!" Michael said. "Watching you two running across the Sahara chased by a pissed off angry pregnant elephant was funny!"

"We were only running because we couldn't shed our vessels. I wonder who managed to stick us like that?" Lucifer asked.

"Well somebody had to stick up for poor Raph you two were always ganging up on him with your jokes." Michael said."

"Do you really miss him?" Chuck asked. The three remaining original archangels all nodded.

"But Daaaad!" Raphael whined as he appeared in a chair that had suddenly appeared between Chuck and Michael. "You said I didn't have to come!"

* * *

The humans and chuck were sitting in a huge living room watching basketball. Namely the Harlem Globetrotters When Chuck admitted he was a big fan.

"God is a Basketball fan?" Dean asked.

"Well it was one of those rare times that I needed Gabriel to deliver a message and he had tickets to the game." Chuck explained.

"I am confused." Castiel said. "I thought the point of this game was to toss the ball through the hoop. But they seem to spend more time taunting the other team."

"That's the point. It's less about the game and more about making the other team look foolish." Murphy said.

"But they are great basketball players." Connor said. "Probably better than most in the NBA because they can do the tricks and play serious basketball."

"But that makes no sense." Cas argued. "Why not just play basketball to the best of their ability."

"Clarence, you know it's your inability to grasp the little things that makes you so adorable." Meg said pinching his cheek while Cas blushed. "They are playing to the best of their ability the buffoonery is where their talent lays and they are showing it off."

"Oh." Cas was still confused.

"Actually when I'm not in the garden I hang out at this playground where Wilt Chamberlain spends his time teaching the children how to play basketball." Joshua said. "Stop by sometime Cas and I'll introduce you to him and we'll shoot a few baskets."

"Cas playing basketball?" Gabriel said as the archangels joined the group. "Now that's something I have to see!"

"Oh me too!" Lucifer said snapping his fingers and the entire group found themselves on a deserted playground with a basketball hoop. Gabriel smirked and snapped his fingers and everyone was now wearing sweatpants and t-shirts.

Chuck snapped up a set of bleachers and sat down. "So to make it fair no angel mojo allowed." While Chuck and Meg watched the teams were soon sorted out.

It soon became clear the Lucifer had the better team. Of course Lucifer had a sasquatch named Sam on his team. Michael had gotten stuck with Cas, who was still clueless and Gabriel who was short but they weren't losing that bad. They did have Dean and Joshua, and Gabriel was the trickster.

The next time Sam got his hands on the ball about to make a shot, Gabriel yelled "Herpexia!" and swiped the ball when it bounced off the rim. Which had Dean rolling on the ground laughing and Sam giving one of his patented bitchfaces.

Castiel wasn't faring much better. When he somehow ended up holding the ball, Lucifer yelled "Hey Cas! I'm open, throw me the ball." Which he naively did earning a lecture from his team on not passing the ball to your opponents. From there the basketball game quickly degenerated into each team pulling out all the stops to distract the other team.

While it was a lot of fun humans do get tired and soon all of the humans had made their way over to the bleachers watching the angels play. Seven archangels and one seraph. Sam nudged Dean and pointed at Chuck. Murphy and Connor also turned to look to see Chuck sitting there with a happy smile on his face. But it was Kevin who broke the silence.

"Pretty cool to have all of them in one place playing together and having fun huh?" Kevin said.

"Yes it is. I always knew that they could learn from you, they just had to stop being angels and start being human. This is something to be thankful for." Chuck said with a smile. "Thank you all for coming and for helping me teach them how to be a family again."


End file.
